MUSTARD BEETLES. 
71 
“ I believe it to be a good system on land infested with wireworm 
to grow White Mustard. In my experience on a certain piece of land 
several crops failed through wireworm ; we sowed White Mustard one 
year and got a good crop of Wheat the next.”— Eichard H. Sears. 
“ Mustard is a very excellent preparation for Wheat, if not the 
best. Mustard has a tendency to destroy or prevent the ravages of the 
wireworm. A field well-known to the writer was infested with wire- 
worm some years ago ; it has now been Mustard several times. Wire- 
worms are rarely met with; the Wheat crops lately have not suffered 
in the slightest degree.”— Samuel Egan. 
“ Mr. Tallant, of Kaucby Grange, in 1827 introduced the practice 
of sowing White Mustard upon land infested with wireworm. It has 
been considered to be a specific from that time.”— Ealph Lowe. 
“ I have not noticed wireworms in Mustard fields.”— Wm. 
Abbott. 
“ The wireworm seldom attacks any crops grown after Mustard, 
but does most mischief after Eye-grass, Tares, and sometimes Turnips 
and Mangolds ; but have noticed that there are certain lands on my 
farms which are continually eaten up by wireworm, the same spot in 
the same field, year after year.”— Thomas P. Brand. 
“ I think it is a common thing to find Mustard attacked by wire- 
worm, but only on land which is subject to the pest. I have had a 
marsh of Mustard destroyed by wireworm, and when ploughed and 
sown with Oats met the same fate.”— Ernest Smith. 
“ In 1885 I had a piece of 4 acres of Potatoes very badly infested 
with wireworm, so much so as seriously to interfere with the quality 
and sale of the produce of the crop. Mustard not having been grown 
upon this field for very many years, and inclining to a somewhat 
popular belief that such crop acted as a scourge to the insect in 
question, I sowed the field (drilling broadcast) with one peck per 
acre of seed. Although well done, and tha land in perfect tilth 
(3 cwts. per acre of guano harrowed in before sowing), the seed did not 
make its appearance ; and on examination I found that so soon as the 
germ showed signs of vitality the wireworm ate its way through it. 
Thus the chance of a Mustard crop was entirely destroyed. Certainly 
95 per cent.* of the seed was thus consumed. I may add that 
samples of this Mustard were sown under other circumstances, aud 
showed great growing capabilities.—A. Bannester. 
* As confusion occasionally arises between presence of the true wireworm, and 
of millepedes or “ false wireworms,” which are also very injurious to Potatoes, I 
think it desirable to note that the observer is perfectly aware of the distinctions 
between the two kinds, and that the above observation refers certainly to the true 
wireworm (that is, to the larva of the click-beetle).— Ed, 
